


All You Need Is Love (Love Will Fill Your Heart)

by PuppetMaster55



Category: Naruto
Genre: Dimension Travel, background sakumo/orochimaru, jinchuuriki rin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 19:19:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13530879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuppetMaster55/pseuds/PuppetMaster55
Summary: Rin is hardly surprised when she discovers that Kakashi's newest take on the hiraishin has sent her to a different Konoha.





	All You Need Is Love (Love Will Fill Your Heart)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blackkat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/gifts).



> Blackkat got an idea over on tumblr and I got Inspired to write this. You're welcome.

There's a distinct oddity, Rin thinks, in finding Kakashi wrangling a trio of kids along a side street one day.

It's not that the kids are genin, or that Kakashi's herding them like an aloof sheepdog, but that she vaguely recognizes three out of four of the people. First up is that she's staring at Mikoto's younger son, who she knows for a fact is doing his rounds as an intern in the hospital. Then there's actually Kakashi, who, she also knew for a fact, is visiting his retired parents from where they'd moved out near Tea Country. It's Orochimaru and Sakumo's thirty-fifth anniversary, and Kakashi is going to surprise them with some new jutsu or something. Rin's not sure and frankly she's stopped caring. Granted, she's stopped caring since ten years ago when Kakashi decided to use her “epic jinchuuriki chakra reserves”, his words not hers, to test out experimental jutsu that have no business existing beyond how aesthetic they create is. Even if they are pretty cool explosions, that Rin can enjoy them as she's nearing thirty.

Kakashi is out of the village, as of this morning, when he'd asked Rin to test this new variant of the hiraishin he was working on.

But it's the blond kid that catches Rin's attention the most. It's how he's got Kushina's build and Sensei's nose, how he smiles like Sensei and has the same kind of expressive arm gesturing that broke Tsume Inuzuka's nose in one famous occasion. It's how Isobu _rumbles_ inside her, a thrumming croon rising from the ocean, that draws her toward this impossible kid.

Rin knows that Sensei and Kushina have discussed kids. She knows that they have begun plans to conceive. She's even offered up her own suggestions toward names for the slightly less than hypothetical kids.

Rin also knows that Kushina had only a pregnancy scare twelve years ago, not an actual pregnancy that produced an actual child. The very same child, Rin suspects, she's staring at.

Isobu continues that croon, making her chakra simmer and bubble in an echo of theirs that she, horrifyingly enough, recognizes as recognition. The same kind of recognition that Rin gets every time she's in the same place as Kushina. The _exact same_ kind of recognition.

This mystery child, this impossible kid, is the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi. Logically, this can mean one of two things: this is Kushina's idea of telling Sensei she's pregnant (which it cannot be, a prank of this caliber is far too subtle and simplistic for Kushina's sensibilities), or Kakashi's new variant on the hiraishin accidentally went sideways and dumped Rin in a different universe.

Rin bites back a groan, and a curse toward Kakashi, because _of course_ he would accidentally create a jutsu that jumps realities. She isn't even surprised at this point, after the time Sensei spent a week living in her broom closet because he'd accidentally traveled a week into the past. Or the time Kakashi spent a month stuck transformed into a serpent.

So. Different universe. One where Kushina's pregnancy scare wasn't a scare. One where...

Rin freezes, halfway across the street. Because this is Kushina's son, and Rin knows well that Kushina is the jinchuuriki of Kyuubi, and for her son to be the next jinchuuriki, at such a young age...

Against her better will, Rin continues across the street, catching Kakashi's attention as she waved.

“Yo! Kakashi!” Rin smiles, and she swears she sees Kakashi's hair turn a shade whiter. She knows she sees his eye widen, and from how he's staring at her, like he's seeing a ghost, that there's something horribly _wrong_ with this reality. “Did you know that if you mess with the hiraishin enough, it sends the user to a different reality?”

“What?” Kushina's son asks, looking from Rin to Kakashi in confusion and suspicion. His two teammates do the same, before moving into majin formation around Kakashi. It's almost adorable and makes Rin want to coo. They're absolute puppies, Rin can see why Kakashi's so bonded.

“Who are you?” the girl asks, one hand steadily, stealthily moving toward her leg pouch.

“I'm his teammate from back when we were genin,” Rin replies. “Hi, Sasuke. Are you learning to be a medic in this reality too?”

Sasuke startles, his hands frozen where they were at the ready to create some kind of jutsu. He stares at Rin like she's something dangerous.

“What?” Kakashi's voice cuts through the air, strangled. “Rin?”

He doesn't say it, but the words are implied in how he says her name: _you're alive_.

So. Kushina's dead, and so is Rin. Kakashi and Sensei must both be horribly mourning them both, and in desperate need of intervention to get their respective jutsu wreck of a life in order.

Rin desperately hopes that Gai isn't dead too, or else this reality is entirely doomed.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Rin is stuck standing outside the Hokage's office while Kakashi, Jiraiya, and Shikaku all yell at each other about the impossibility that she's here. The décor isn't as she remembers, looking more like the vague memory of how the Third decorated it instead of the more minimalist approach Sensei liked.

“So...” Rin says, sidling up to Kushina's kid. Kakashi had left his puppies standing out in the hallway with her, and she doesn't pay the three anbu standing menacingly at either end of the hallway much mind. “What did your mom and dad decide to name you? My offer was on Katuski, so if that's your name, then Sensei _absolutely_ owes me that five hundred ryo he bet. And don't think your dad can get out of this by claiming it was made in a different reality, I'm collecting on _both_ his pockets.”

“You– I–” Kushina's kid falters, looking shocked. “My– my dad?” He collects himself, looking up at her expectantly, hesitantly. “I have a dad? You know who my parents are?”

Rin's smile breaks, slipping into a frown before her jaw drops in horror. No. Not Sensei too.

“Who's the current Hokage,” Rin hears herself ask, faintly.

Sasuke shares a look with the girl—Rin really should get around to seeing them complete their part of introductions, but she can't because it's settling in, the cold empty feeling in her gut, that _Kushina's gone Sensei's gone their son doesn't know who either of them are_ —and answers, “The Third.”

“...what happened to Sensei?” Rin asks, still processing. She isn't one to linger on wounds, not like Kakashi. At the various confused looks the puppies give, she elaborates, “the Fourth. What happened to him.”

“He...” the girl looks past Rin, at the door to the Hokage's office. “He died. Twelve years ago.”

“The Kyuubi,” Kushina's son says, staring up at Rin like she knows the answers to the universe. “He died stopping it. So did a lot of people.” He looks down, shrugging. “My parents both died on that day, I guess. Most I know is that they died a couple hours after I was born.”

Gods, this is almost too much. Isobu's gentle rumbling becomes louder, insistent, closer to the surface than before amid a churning sea, and Rin—

Rin stops. She breathes. She processes, and calms herself, because she is jinchuuriki, and intense emotions are dangerous for someone like her.

Idly, Rin wonders if this kid, Kushina's son, even knows how dangerous his own emotions can be.

“I knew your parents,” Rin says, unsure how much he knows about them. If he doesn't know about Kushina, then he likely doesn't know the motto she lived by. “Your dad taught me and Kakashi back when we were genin. And your mom, she loves– _loved_ us like we were her own kids.” Rin smiles, bending down to level with this lonely child. “No one ever accused Kushina Uzumaki of not loving everyone in her life. And if they did, then they were about to die. Kushina lives– lived believing that nobody is ever complete until they have a heart full of love.”

“Uzumaki?” Kushina's son says, the name sounding familiar on his tongue. “I got my name from my mom?”

“Maybe,” Rin allows, because at least now she knows that he carries the Uzumaki legacy. “I don't know about your first name though. It could still be Katuski.”

“It's Naruto,” he says, and the name strikes something within Rin, brings up emotions and memories that Rin had forgotten. Of a book and a promise for the future, of warm nights and laughter and love. “Naruto Uzumaki.”

“Well, Naruto,” Rin says, smiling. She pats him on the head, closing her eyes against the tears. “Your mother loved you with all her heart. I bet she loved you so much that she couldn't stop crying when she saw you.”

Naruto's looking up at Rin like she hung the moon, and Isobu's a quiet, distant rumble far beneath a calm sea. “Really?”

Rin knows the power of words, understands how deeply they can cut or how much they can fill someone's heart. But this, mending this hurt, requires something far greater.

She hugs Naruto, holding him like Kushina once held her all those years ago.

“Kushina and Sensei both loved you,” she says, feeling the weight of each word. “I understand what you're going through. I went through it too. But we are so much more than what they think we are. Kushina told me, when I was a little older than you, that what we carry can consume us if we don't fill our hearts with love. I can tell from one look at you that your parents loved you so much that you're heart's overflowing with their love. Never forget how much they love you, no matter how bad it gets.”

Naruto stiffens, and slowly, he hugs her back. Tight enough to almost hurt.

It's not a perfect fix, not by a long shot, but it's enough of a start that Rin can rest assured of Naruto's happiness when everyone finally figures out a way to get her back home.

 


End file.
